The Rockin' Rodents

Introduction.

This story started a decade ago as a short play to help teach young Spanish children English. That project didn't work out, and so it sat on my hard drive doing nothing.

Then after teaching drama at a Summer camp, I dusted it off and decided to change it into a children's story for English speakers.

As I worked on it, I realized that I wanted to talk about things that were inappropriate or uninteresting for younger readers. Then I invented the characters of Ger, Ariana, and Johnny and their fictional Irish town Ballycraicsdown. I decided to have a story inside a story wrapped up in a bunch of songs.

This is both a love letter to music, especially rock, and a fairy tale.

To that end, this book also has a soundtrack. This is completely optional. I'm not even asking you to like the songs, but if there's a music reference that you're not familiar with, they will help. I also intend to write and record my own songs for the soundtrack, although most will be famous songs by other artists. So listen to the songs if you need to but don't feel compelled to.